Undergraduate fee status assessments at the University of Cambridge are undertaken by either the central University or by your College, and the outcome of this assessment will be confirmed if you are offered a place on the course. All assessment decisions are governed by external regulations laid down by the UK Government (see the Home page), which means that it makes no difference whether your College or the University assesses your fee status - the outcome would be the same.
Most assessments can be determined on the basis of information you have provided as part of your application to Cambridge. If an assessment is unclear, the University fees staff or the College will contact you direct to request further information and supporting documents as appropriate. This should not be taken as a guarantee that you will offered an interview or will be offered a place on the course.
Applicants to the following Colleges have their fee status assessed by the central University:
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Churchill College Clare College Corpus Christi College |
Downing College Emmanuel College Fitzwilliam College |
Girton College Homerton College Hughes Hall* |
Jesus College Magdalene College Pembroke College |
Robinson College Sidney Sussex College St Catharine’s College |
St Edmund’s College* Trinity College Trinity Hall |
*Applicants for Graduate Medicine are assessed by the College.
Applicants to these Colleges will be contacted by the University's fee status staff if their assessment is unclear. All other enquiries should be directed to the College admissions team.
The following Colleges undertake their own fee status assessments:
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Christ’s College Gonville & Caius College Hughes Hall* King's College |
Newnham College Murray Edwards College Peterhouse St Edmund's College* |
St John’s College Queens’ College Lucy Cavendish College |
Selwyn College Wolfson College |
*Graduate Medicine only
Applicants to these Colleges should contact their College admissions team direct with any fee status queries, or any other questions relating to their application.
Documents required for a fee status assessment
Applicants who are contacted by their College or the central University regarding their fee status must send the following documents to the appropriate office by email:
- A completed Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire
- Evidence of their nationality, UK immigration status and country/countries of 'ordinary residence' throughout the three years leading up to the course start date. (EEA, UK and Swiss nationals living outside the UK on 31 December 2020 also need to provide evidence of their country of residence in December 2020.) When considered together, these three factors determine an applicant's fee status.
The types of documents that provide acceptable evidence are listed below. Please note that not all British citizens are eligible for Home fee status. Some British applicants may be asked to submit additional documents to the University or their College if their fee status is not clear. If you're not sure why you have been contacted, please refer to the Applicant FAQs at the bottom of this page.
Acceptable documents
Nationality: Passport or national ID card. If you hold a current passport confirming that you are a British or Irish citizen, you only need to submit a copy of this passport - the University doesn't need to see any other passports that you hold.
AND
UK immigration status (if a non-British citizen): Copy of visa entry page(s) in your current and old passport(s), residence permit or share code. Applicants holding pre- or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme must provide a share code to allow the University or College to verify their status.
AND
Ordinary residence: Please select two or more different types of document from the list below, noting that the list is not exhaustive.
Note: As a result of Brexit, there is an additional document requirement for all EEA (including EU) nationals, all Swiss nationals, and any UK nationals who were living outside the UK in December 2020. If one or more of these categories apply to you, please submit an additional document confirming your country of residence in December 2020.
Documents addressed to your parent or spouse must be accompanied by a copy of your full birth, adoption or marriage certificate showing your parent(s)' names as evidence of your relationship. You don't need to submit copies of their passport(s) or driving licence(s).
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A bank statement from each of the three school summer holidays leading up to your planned course start date. These must contain in-person transactions in the country or area in which you are claiming residence. Transaction description, payment method, account holder's name and their address should be clearly visible, but the account balance and transaction figure can be redacted. Please ensure that the statements come from the main bank account that the account holder uses for in-person transactions, as fee assessors need to establish in which country the account holder was located when the transaction took place. We'll therefore contact you again to request additional evidence if you only submit statements containing a small number of transactions, online purchases or direct debits, which slows the assessment process down.
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Travel tickets (e.g. flight booking / Eurostar tickets) showing all journeys in and out of the country you've lived in since 1 August 2021. If your family's normal travel was disrupted by the pandemic, please provide evidence of any international travel in 2018 and 2019.
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Spouse or parent/parents' employment contract(s) (in full) that were in use from 1 August 2021 onwards. This includes any contract extension letters, or employer letters confirming an overseas posting. Any salary or allowance figures stated in the contract(s) can be redacted.
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Utility bills for your home address for August 2021 and August 2023. Please include the pages confirming actual energy consumption. If you changed your address during that period, please send us a bill from August 2022 as well.
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Council tax bills covering the periods August 2021 and August 2023.
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Tenancy agreement(s) from 1 August 2021 onwards. We only need to see the pages confirming property address, tenants’ names and length of tenancy. If you submit this document, please include a bank statement from August 2021 and a utility bill from August 2023. (Please refer to the document descriptions above to ensure that you are submitting appropriate documents.)
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UK driving licence (including provisional licences).
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Your full online delivery history associated with your home address, from 1 August 2021 to the present.
All documents should be submitted in PDF format with a maximum file size of 2.5 MB.
Applicant FAQs
Q. I've been asked to send documents to the University's fee status staff. What do I need to do?
Firstly, please check that the email is genuine - all correspondence from the fee status staff will have been sent from feestatusandpolicy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
All applicants who have been contacted by the fees staff will need to send in the following documents:
- a complete Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire;
- appropriate evidence from the list of ordinary residence documents (above).
To submit these documents, please attach them to your email when replying to the fees staff, ensuring that the email is addressed to feestatusandpolicy@admin.cam.ac.uk. To help the University process your assessment promptly, the subject field of your email should follow the format given below:
UCAS Personal ID Surname CollegeName CourseName. For example: 0123456789 Bloggs Fitzwilliam Computer Science
All documents should be submitted in PDF file format with a maximum file size of 2.5 MB.
The fees staff can only provide advice on, or respond to questions related to, the fee status aspect of your University application. All other queries need to be directed to your College admissions team.
Q. I'm a British citizen - why have I been asked to send documents to the fees staff?
Fee status is determined by three factors: nationality, immigration status, and country or countries of ordinary residence. For applicants who are British citizens and also nationals of another country, or were born overseas, the information contained in their UCAS and My Cambridge Application sometimes provides an incomplete or misleading view of their country or countries of ordinary residence . They may have maintained strong, weak or indeed no links with the country they were born in, or of which they are a national. However, the fees staff won’t know the nature of this relationship – which may affect the assessment outcome – until additional evidence is obtained from the applicant via a fee status questionnaire and supporting evidence.
Q. Will my College know what my fee status is?
Once the fees staff have confirmed an applicant's fee status in the University's student records system, the outcome will be visible to their College. Open applications will be made visible to the college to whom the application has been allocated and the fee status assessment will then be carried out by that College or by the University as appropriate (see tables at the top of the page).
Colleges whose applicants have their fee status assessed by the University have access to live data on the progress of individual assessments within their College, from 'not yet assessed' to 'processing' to 'fee status confirmed'. They are also copied in to any correspondence between the University's fee status staff and the applicant, and can access any documents submitted by the applicant in support of their fee status assessment.
Q. I have applied for a place for Medicine. Who will carry out my fee status assessment?
All applicants for a place on the Graduate Course in Medicine (UCAS course code A101) have their fee status assessed by their College. Applicants for the Standard Course in Medicine (A100) should refer to the tables at the top of the page to check whether their fee status will be assessed by their College or by the central University.
Q. I was asked to submit fee status assessment documents to the fees staff in November. Does this mean that I will be offered a place on the course?
All applicants to Medicine (UCAS course code A100) have their fee status assessed as part of the standard application process, as the UK government imposes an annual cap on the number of Medicine students considered to be 'Overseas' for fee status purposes. This cap applies across both Medicine courses - Standard (UCAS code A100) and Graduate (UCAS code A101). If the University has requested further documents from an applicant for Standard Medicine, this does not indicate that their application has been successful - it simply shows that more information was required in order to make an assessment.
Q. How long will it take to assess my fee status?
This depends on the complexity of your situation! For more complex assessments, it will depend on the time it takes for the student to get their supporting documents together.
Q. I have received an offer, but my fee status hasn't been confirmed yet. Is something wrong?
Firstly, don't worry! The number of applications and offers made each year, plus delays in obtaining documents from external organisations, means that the University cannot always confirm fee status by the time that an offer is made. However, it will confirm the assessment as part of the offer whenever possible.
The fees staff prioritise assessments for any applicant whose fee status was still unclear at offer stage, to ensure that the offer holder has sufficient time to make a decision before their College's and UCAS's reply deadlines. Longer delays in making an assessment beyond that date are normally attributable to external factors that have a material impact on fee status - for instance, some changes in immigration status.
Q. I think that the fee status in my offer letter is wrong. What should I do?
Firstly, please refer to www.fee-status.admin.cam.ac.uk/is-my-fee-status-correct, paying particular attention to UKCISA's guidance document. if you still believe that your fee status is incorrect, you can request a fee status reassessment from the office who carried out your original assessment. Please refer to the tables at the top of the page for confirmation of which office undertook your assessment. If the University carried out your assessment, you will need to contact the fees staff at feestatusandpolicy@admin.cam.ac.uk. Applicants to Colleges who carry out their own assessments will need to contact their College admissions team. In either case, please send a completed Fee Status Assessment Questionnaire and supporting documents to the appropriate contact.
Q. What happens to documents I submitted to the University in support of my assessment if I don't enrol on the course?
The University takes its record management keeping responsibilities seriously and its Information and Compliance Office ensures that the institution complies with its legal responsibilities in this area. For further information on how the University obtains, retains and deletes applicant data and documents, please see the Statement published by the University's Information and Compliance Office.